Another reason to celebrate the 4th of July

On July 4, 1867,  Stephen T. Mather was born to Joseph Mather and Bertha Walker in San Francisco, CA. For his childhood and education the family remained in California but eventually moved to New York, where both Mather and his father worked for the Pacific Coast Borax Company. Along with his friend Robert Yard, Mather developed an aggressive but effective marketing campaign but in 1903, Mather suffered an episode of bipolar disorder and left his job with the Pacific Coast Company. Instead, he went into business with a friend and they developed their own borax company from which they both became millionaires. 

Photo: nps.gov (Stephen Mather)

In 1904, he and his wife traveled to Europe where he discovered his love of nature and his wife discovered a treatment for his bipolar disorder. His experience in Europe drove him to become a conservationist and to befriend John Muir. He quickly became involved in the Sierra Club and the Boone and Crocket Club and spent time exploring National Parks. It was while he was in the parks that he noticed the deterioration of the protected lands. The Army was in charge of protecting the parks but they did not have legal authority and were vastly outnumbered by the tourists. Mather wrote a letter to Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane complaining about the state of the parks. 

Photo: nps.gov

Lane received Mather's letter and it gave him pause. The myth is that he and Mather had been classmates at the University of California together and that's why he responded to the letter but in reality, Lane was enrolled at the school after Mather had graduated. Instead, Lane recognized the name because Mather had been a reporter for the New York Sun and had then gone on to become a millionaire as a businessman thanks to his advertising campaign for borax. Lane needed someone to be in charge of the National Parks and with Mather's track record he seemed the perfect fit, so Lane wrote a response: 

"Dear Steve, if you don't like how the national parks are being run, come on down to Washington and run them yourself."

Photo: loc.gov (Franklin Lane)

Mather agreed to do so, but intended to work for just one year because he believed it would take only that much time to fix the system. In that year, Mather and Horace Albright campaigned to have an official service in charge of the National Parks. Their efforts resulted in the National Park Service Organic Act that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law on August 25, 1916. While Mather had agreed to work for the National Parks for a year, he continued to work for the newly created Park Service as its first Director until 1929. 

Photo: nps.gov